another year another post

... to mark another bloggiversary, albeit a thin one; this is the longest I've gone without posting since inception. Part of it is that the BTBA was deferred until next year; I'd mentioned that 3% had planned to review (via podcasts) all the past winners, but that too was shelved due to other commitments (such as keeping Dalkey Archive going and marking where it's been). I'd thought of posting something along similar lines myself (having read the majority of the poetry and nearly all the fiction winners), but found it more a matter of my tastes than of intrinsic merits (if that's what the judges' tastes are). It seems that my tastes have diverged somewhat from those of prize-givers more generally (less so with BTBA than with other awards) in working out what it is I need to read. The need to write, on the other hand, is less pressing, at least for the time being.